Jean-François Lisée’s certainly owes his opposition colleague Manon Massé the apology he eventually offered for his tasteless joke about her “moustache” during a radio show interview over the weekend.

But the Parti Québécois leader shouldn’t stop there. Lisée not only insulted the Québec solidaire MNA with the remark, he also demeaned his newly named deputy leader, Véronique Hivon, who was at his side during the segment, by contrasting her appearance with Massé’s. The implicit message is that a woman politician’s worth is determined by her looks. If that’s not what Lisée meant, that’s sure how it sounded.

In one fell swoop, he undercut his own attempt to show the moribund PQ’s commitment to gender equality by elevating the status of a well respected and bright woman to a leadership role. Was Hivon’s appointment genuine or just a cynical gesture?

Perhaps Lisée thought he was complimenting Hivon by noting: “Unlike Manon, she does not have a moustache.” But he only makes it sound like Hivon was chosen for being a pretty face rather than for her brain — which is equally offensive. Hivon also deserves an apology, if she hasn’t received one already.

But so do all Quebec women, who are frankly sick and tired of being judged according to some arbitrary standard of beauty. To get ahead, a woman needs to look, dress and groom a certain way. If she does, she risks being reduced to an object of desire and not taken seriously. If she doesn’t conform to the polished norm, she could be stigmatized, sidelined or mocked — another way of denying her respect. This conundrum is an age-old way of undercutting women’s value, intellect and contributions.

Massé, a champion of LGBTQ rights and a feminist, wears her facial hair as a badge of honour. “It says that I am proud of who I am and it is not my appearance that is important, but the ideas that I propose,” she told Urbania in 2012.

Lisée first tried to justify his remark as a sign of esteem for Massé, noting her moustache is not a taboo for her. But what business does he have talking about it? Lisée then defended his right to make a bad joke, before finally acknowledging he was out of line.

More than that, it was tone deaf. And the very act of having to dissect Lisée’s inexcusable cluelessness is an affront to Massé’s dignity,

The whole episode speaks to the much larger issue of the barriers still facing women in attaining prominent posts, be it in politics, business, entertainment or whatever. The nadir is the kind of sexual assault, harassment and blackmail being revealed as part of the #MeToo movement. But casual forms of sexism also make the pursuit of power unattractive — the double standards, the insensitivity, the downright stupidity. Many women might be willing to just grow a thicker skin. But nobody needs that kind of crap.

The problem goes far beyond one person or one party, though. Premier Philippe Couillard recently said he’d love to see more women in politics, but declined to set any targets for recruiting female candidates or proposing ways to increase representation in the National Assembly. Only a third of Quebec MNAs and less than half of Couillard’s cabinet ministers are women. He has steadfastly stuck to the old “women don’t want special treatment” justification for inaction and inertia.

But let’s hope Couillard — and all the other Quebec political leaders present — were paying close attention when former First Lady Michelle Obama spoke in Montreal Monday evening. She had some piercing insights into the lack of women in leadership roles.

Obama pondered the differences in men’s and women’s confidence levels. No matter how accomplished, women tend to doubt whether they are worthy of the job, Obama noted, whereas men automatically assume they deserve to be at the table — whether they actually do or not.

Obama also discussed the aversion to affirmative action as an impediment to change. She told the story of how when she started at Princeton, many people assumed that as a young black woman from Chicago’s South Side, she was there only because of some special program. But, she said, some of her classmates were there only because of their wealth, privilege or family connections.

There are lots of types of affirmative action, Obama quipped, calling the stigma that dogs efforts to include women, black people or minority groups “a scam” meant to maintain the status quo.

Obama also offered a prescription that is painfully obvious yet still needs saying: a bunch of men sitting around trying to figure out how to recruit more women probably aren’t going to find the solution.

Ask some women! she exclaimed.

So when it comes to why more aren’t leaping into politics, ask Hivon. Ask Massé. Ask any other woman who has served or sought elected office.

Ask them if it’s a matter of work-life balance, or the aggressive partisanship, or a lack of nerve to put their hand up to run. Or ask them if it’s the spectre of one day being publicly humiliated by a colleague from whom they expected much better.

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